


The Morning After

by swooning



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-05-04
Packaged: 2020-02-18 13:04:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,193
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18700174
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/swooning/pseuds/swooning
Summary: Sansa has one too many things on her mind.Spoilers through 8.3.





	The Morning After

 

With the dawn came several realizations.

First: there were more dead than Sansa had ever thought possible. In the crypt, the risen-then-fallen dead had been terrifying but finite. Above, they blanketed the courtyard and the fields beyond, layering a grisly geography over land that had been flat the night before.

Second: so many of the dead had faces she knew, yet didn’t know, because they had died twice. She couldn’t think about that yet. Couldn’t look at their distorted visages as she directed the disposal of their bodies.

Third: there were fewer mouths to feed now, but still too many. The two dragons had survived, as well, and did they require more or less food when recovering from wounds? She could have asked the Dragon Queen, but she suspected any answer she received would be unhelpful. She had no time for that.

Fourth: she was alive, and Tyrion was alive, and neither of them had expected to be or they wouldn’t have spoken quite so freely the night before.

It was a problem, and she had more than enough other problems to solve. She held a list of them in her hand, line after line with very little crossed off yet, and she couldn’t take three strides across the courtyard without somebody stopping to ask her for something else. Bones for broth, extra blankets or furs, the location of a blacksmith if any had survived.

Her mother had taught her that to run a household she must always keep track of the budget, the larder, and the linens. Running an army, apparently, was not so different…but the Dragon Queen lacked a proper quartermaster, and seemed more interested in striding about regally and gracing her remaining troops with her smile than actually seeing to their needs. Given that the budget was nonexistent, the larder nearly empty, and the linens certainly insufficient to bandage all the wounded, Daenerys might do well to pay a bit more attention to logistics and a bit less to…well, Jon. Who was at his queen’s side now, gesturing at the damaged walls and the dead as if he were planning to do something about these things. His eyes were guarded, and the queen’s smile didn’t ring true; they were closed to each other, polite but wary. It didn’t bode well.

Meanwhile, across the courtyard, the Hand of the Queen was organizing a crew with carts to pile bodies on. Sansa didn’t know who the men and women were, or where the carts had come from, but Tyrion had somehow procured them and started them to work. He had simply known what to do, and was already doing it. And, if she could tell anything from such a distance, he was drawing others in to help as well. One item crossed off her list.

Had he even broken bread yet, or had his wounds tended? Sansa’s lips tensed as though she might frown and she reflexively relaxed, letting her muscles smooth into an expression that gave nothing away. An unruffled demeanor, the slightest hint of a smile, empty eyes, these had kept her alive for years. But beneath the cool exterior, she still wondered if Tyrion might need something to eat.

_With dead and wounded all around, more snow in the air, a literal army to feed, you’re_ most _worried whether this one moderately useful man has had his breakfast?_

A warmth crept into her chest, her face. The same sensation had struck her in the crypt when he’d kissed her hand. Not passion, not giddiness, nothing so romantic. Only certainty, and gladness.

Certainty that he was a good man. Gladness to know, right at the end, that she had at least become the kind of person who understood how rare and valuable a man like Tyrion was.

But it hadn’t been the end after all.

_We should have stayed married…_

Never mind Daenerys Targaryen. If they had stayed married, they would have probably both been killed in short order to slake Cersei Lannister’s thirst for power. And then neither of them would be who they were today: two people who might have suited one another quite well given the chance.

Tyrion looked across the courtyard directly at her, as if he’d heard her thoughts. He was too far away, and his face was too grimy, for her to read his expression.

For a moment, time paused. One heartbeat, two, three. Sansa realized she was holding her breath, and released it slowly as Tyrion inclined his head toward her. Not a proper bow. Not a grand, romantic flourish, which she wouldn’t have trusted anyway. A simple acknowledgment. He saw her, and they were both alive, but they had things to do that couldn’t wait.

She nodded back. A soldier, some bannerman’s boy, approached to ask her if she’d seen the Maester. By the time she’d pointed the way then turned back around, a wagon had drawn up in the center of the courtyard, hiding her once-husband entirely.

_Just as well_.

Even in the cold, the bodies needed to be dealt with right away. As did the sundry other things on Sansa’s list. Neither of them had time to puzzle through what their words might mean in the light of day, in the light of all the possibilities that day brought.

She allowed herself another moment to stare at the side of the wagon as if she could will it to move. Then she forced her attention back to the next item on her list.

_Latrines._

“Lovely.”

It had been a long night. It was shaping up to be a long day, and it had barely begun.

Sansa beckoned to a smallish girl nearby, the closest person with their hands free. “Do you know who Lord Tyrion is?” she asked the somber child. “The Hand of the Queen?”

The girl nodded. “Yes, my lady.”

“Go to the kitchens, tell them he needs meat and bread at once, then take it to him over there.” She pointed across the courtyard. The girl turned to look, folding her arms around herself as if it would protect her from the dead. A protection she no longer required, thank the old Gods and the new.

“Yes, my lady.”

“And a flagon of warm wine,” Sansa added. Not an afterthought, or a frivolity. Her own legs ached from fatigue and cold; how much more must his? And the end of the Night King hadn’t meant the end of winter; today was colder than the day before. Tomorrow would likely be colder still.

The girl was yards away when Sansa called to her again: “And tell Lord Tyrion who sent you.”

The child nodded and darted away, disappearing as quickly as a startled hare.

The food was for him, because he needed it. The knowledge that it came from her…that was for Sansa. Because she wanted him to think of her.

And if she was going to live after all, perhaps it was time to consider what she wanted for herself, and pursue it. Not for her family’s good name or political standing, not to save her own life, but simply because she wanted it.

 

 

 

 


End file.
